U.S. Committee on Merchant 

Marine and Fisheries, 
Statement of Dr. Hugh M.Smith, 
un Study of Fish Diseases. 
1911 



I :■'•■>•■•'■ ..v,- ,vi .> ; . ■ ^^■a 










STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 



[S. 8123, Sixty-first Congress, second session.] 
AN ACT To establish a biological station for the study of fish diseases. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
States of America in Congress assembled. That out of any moneys in the Treas- 
ury not otherwise appropriated there is hereby appropriated — 

For the construction and equipment of a biological station, under the direc- 
tion of the Bureau of Fisheries, for the study of fish diseases and experimental 
work in the interests of fish culture, at some suitable site to be selected by the 
Secretary of Commerce and Labor, including purchase of site and the construc- 
tion of buildings and ponds, forty thousand dollars. 

For all necessary expenses in connection with the special study of fish dis- 
eases, in the interests of fish culture, ten thousand dollars. 



Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 

House of Representatives. 

Thursday, .January 26, 1011 
The committee proceeded to the consideration of S. 8123 at 11.10 
o'clock a. m.. Hon. William S. Greene (chairman) presiding-. 

STATEMENT OF DR. HUGH M. SMITH, DEPUTY AND ACTING COM- 
MISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 

The Chairman. We will now hear from Dr. Smith, representing 
the Commissioner of Fisheries, on Senate bill 8123. 

Dr. Smith. As the Deputy and Acting Commissioner of Fisheries 
I have been authorized by Secretary Nagel to appear before this com- 
mittee and state the position of the department and the Bureau of 
Fisheries with reference to Senate bill 8123, and I would like to sub- 
mit a very brief statement on the matter, with your permission. 

A subject that is already very important in the fish-cultural work 
of the Government and is yearly becoming more so is fish diseases. 
The cultivation of fishes, like the cultivation of domestic animals, 
predisposes to maladies of various kinds from which wild fishes are 
practically free. 

The Bureau of Fisheries has been obliged to spend considerable 
time and money in the investigation of more or less serious epidemics 
affecting young fish and brood stock at our hatcheries, and has been 
called on repeatedly to render aid to the States in similar emergencies. 

76597—11 



2 STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 

With very limited means and facilities, we have achieved consid- 
erable success in ascertaining the causes and in suggesting ways to 
cure and prevent certain troublesome diseases affecting the fishes of 
the fresh waters that are cultivated in ponds. We have long felt 
that the situation demands more comprehensive and energetic con- 
sideration, and we have been hopeful that Congress would be so im- 
pressed with the importance of the matter that adequate facilities 
Avould be provided. Congress is most liberal in establishing fish 
hatcheries in all parts of the country. What is now urgently needed 
to make the operation of these hatcheries more efficient and more 
economical is a station established especially for the investigation of 
practical and passing problems in fish breeding. There is an agri- 
cultural experiment station in every State — may there not be one 
fishery experiment station for the* entire country? 

The most serious, widespread, and destructive fish disease now receiv- 
ing attention and demanding the most careful study is malignant tu- 
mor, affecting the thyroid gland of the salmons and trouts. This tumor 
has all the characteristics of cancer, but in order not to unduly 
alarm the fish-eating public, we prefer to call this affection the throat 
or thyroid tumor rather than by the dreaded name of cancer. Facts 
regarding the prevalence of this disease, its ravages in Government 
and State hatcheries, and the problems that are confronting the fish- 
culturalist can be presented to the committee by Dr. Gaylord better 
than by me, as he has been giving special personal attention to this 
subject for a year or more. 

I would like to say that Dr. Gaylord represents the highest per- 
fection of knowledge of the whole subject of cancer. He is the lead- 
ing specialist on the subject, and we have been very fortunate in 
securing his services in this great emergency that has recently come 
up in our work. 

In the event of the establishment of this station this fish cancer 
will be the chief subject for investigation for several years at least. 
We are hopeful that the disease may soon be eradicated and meas- 
ures devised for preventing its recurrence. 

As long as fish are cultivated, however, there will be some kinds 
of maladies to combat, and the proposed experiment station will 
become increasingly useful and necessary with the development and 
expansion of artificial propagation. 

We foresee some very important work that may be done at such 
a station that can not be undertaken at the ordinary hatchery where 
every effort is put forth to produce a large output in order to meet 
the demands that are far in excess of the supply. I have reference to 
the institution of experiments having for their object the improve- 
ment of the food qualities of our fishes. What selective breeding 
has done for poultry, cattle, horses, and dogs, selective breeding may 
do for bass trout, and other fishes; but this is a subject to which as 
yei no attention whatever has been given owing to lack of facilities. 
One does not have to be a prophet to be able to predict that it will be 
possible to produce breeds of fish that will be immune or very 
resistant to disease, and will have food qualities and size superior to 
the wild fish. 

An aspect of this matter which I think should be brought to the 
attention of the committee is the very large commercial value of the 

n. fit: It 



)X\j> STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 3 

fish eggs, young fish, and brood fish that are imperiled each year by 
the various epidemics and maladies to which the output of the fresh- 
water hatcheries is liable. I have been making' some calculations 
based on the market value of our product as determined (1) by the 
actual cost of manufacture, so to speak, and (2) by the quotations 
of private individuals engaged in raising fish for sale; and I have 
arrived at the conclusion that the annual output of the Federal 
hatcheries alone represents an actual money value of not less than 
$1,000,000. This output is imperiled by our inability to handle ade- 
quately the diseases that are constantly coming up. 

Mr. Hobson. Will you tell us approximately what is the capita] 
invested in the plants that have the output of a million dollars? 

Dr. Smith. They are, I believe, 31 hatcheries, whose output is 
now involved in fish epidemics. 

Mr. Hobson. Do they yield the million dollars that you estimate? 

Dr. Smith. Those hatcheries do. 

Mr. Hobson. And cost approximately $25,0001 

Dr. Smith. Yes. 

Mr. Hobson. And then, how much to maintain, on an average, 
each year? 

Dr. Smith. The average personnel of a hatchery costs $4,500. 
About that much more, or. in some exceptional eases, twice as much 
more, is required to operate and maintain, depending altogether 
on the nature of the work. 

Mr. Goulden. The bureau has been very kind to me in furnishing 
me with bass and all other fish I needed for a fresh-water pond up 
in Maryland. Last spring, in April, about 150 or 200 fish, black 
bass principally, came to the surface and drifted to the shore, dead. 
Can you give me any explanation of what could have occurred? It 
must have been some disease. They weighed anywhere from a quar- 
ter of a pound up to 1 pounds. It almost depleted the fresh-water 
pond. 

Dr. Smith. There are so many ways that fish can be killed in a 
wholesale way that it would be impossible for me to make any sug- 
gestion. 

Mr. Goulden. It was not the ice. because the ice had disappeared 
two months before. But there were at least 150 to 200 of them, and 
it looked to me like a very great pity. 

Dr. Smith. I would like to say that we have found that one of the 
principal causes of disease in basses and trouts that are reared in 
ponds is bacterial infection. The fishes, owing to the medium in 
which they live, seem to be particularly liable to diseases of a bacte- 
rial nature, and I will illustrate the seriousness of this matter. A 
few years ago we had at one station a prospective output of a mil- 
lion and a half yearling brook trout, and 1.200,000 of them died in a 
very short time of an obscure bacterial disease, which we have since 
been able to study and hope to prevent recurring. 

Mr. Hardy. Right along the line of what Mr. Goulden was saying, 
we had a large artificial tank near my home which was stocked for 
breeding purposes with hickory shad, and for about two years they 
increased very enormously, until one day after a big rain, all of a 
sudden when that tank ran over the dam enough to get back to its 



4 STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 

level the whole border of it was covered with dead shad, and I do not 
think there has ever been a shad in it since. 

Mr. Gouluen. I think one of the uses of this proposed experiment 
station would be to determine, if possible, by investigation the nature 
of the disease and the remedy. I did not bother the bureau with a 
complaint in my own case, because I knew you had enough to do 
without it, and I knew you were not equipped and in shape to take 
charge of an individual experiment of that character. 

Dr. Smith. I would like to say that the Federal Fisheries Service 
is looked up to by all the States having fish-cultural work, and that 
means about three-fourths of them, and whenever any troublesome 
fishery question arises in a State, or in connection with State fish- 
cultural work, we are called upon to make a study of it ; so that this 
proposed laboratory would be useful to all the States, as well as to 
the Federal Government. 

I would like to have reproduced in the records of the committee two 
brief references to this subject that appear in the last report of the 
Commissioner of Fisheries. 

The Chairman. That can be done. 

Dr. Smth. I have nothing else to say. 

Mr. Sttjrgiss. Do you not think you owe it to the public, if it is 
cancer, to call it cancer? 

Dr. Smith. Until we have gotten a little further along in our work 
we have not wanted to unduly alarm the people. As a matter of 
fact, however, the existence of cancer in fish is now pretty well rec- 
ognized by the public. 

Mr. Wilson. Are there not various opinions amongst the medical 
profession as to whether fish do cause cancer ? 

Dr. Smith. I would like for Dr. Gaylord to speak on that point, 
I think there is some doubt as to whether fish have given cancer to 
human beings or whether human beings are responsible for cancer 
in fish. But, in any event, it is a very important problem that ought 
to be studied. 

STATEMENT OF DR. HARVEY R. GAYLORD, DIRECTOR OF THE 
NEW YORK STATE CANCER LABORATORY, OF BUFFALO, N. Y. 

Dr. Gaylord. Gentlemen, perhaps you would be interested in 
knowing the way in which we became interested in this subject, 
which, at first glance, might appear somewhat foreign to an investi- 
gation of cancer in human beings. 

The past 13 years comprehends practically all that has been ac- 
complished in modern cancer research, and the advance in cancer 
investigation we owe almost exclusively to the study of cancer in the 
lower animals. About 10 years ago the investigation of cancer, 
which had become a very acute problem before the medical profes- 
sion, was taken up energetically, and was, fortunately, put upon an 
experimental basis by the discovery, or the recognition, of the fact 
that cancer could be transmitted from one animal to another, ex- 
perimentally, by grafting, by transplantation. That gave us the 
means of experimenting with cancer. It also attracted our attention 
to the prevalence of cancer in the lower animals. Out of those ob- 
servations there came certain very suggestive facts concerning the 
endemic occurrence of cancer. Our attention has also been called 



STUDY OP FISH DISEASES. 5 

to the occurrence of cases in certain localities, and, among other 
things, our attention was attracted to a curious geographical dis- 
tribution of cancer, which suggested a relationship between cancer 
and water. 

In due course of time that naturally attracted our attention to the 
question of whether fish, the inhabitants of the water, suffered from 
cancer and allied diseases as did other animals. There is a marked 
distinction in the distribution of cancer in animals between the wild 
and the domesticated. It is true we have nothing like the accurate in- 
formation regarding wild animals that we have regarding domesticated 
animals. But from certain significant facts in relation to the distribu- 
tion of cancer in man, it is pretty well known that civilization has 
a marked effect upon the incidence of cancer in man, and that do- 
mestication of animals has a like effect. So when we came to investi- 
gate the question of whether fish were affected by cancer, it was a 
particularly interesting question to us, because they are a species far 
removed from the domestic animals. We shortly found that the fish 
were affected by cancer, and that those principally affected were in 
the domesticated state. Some three years ago our attention was 
called to the possibility of cancer in hatcheries, and our first obser- 
vations were made in the State of New York, where, in a certain 
hatchery, in due course of time, an epidemic of cancer of the thyroid 
gland appeared, and in one summer 3,500 fish died with cancer, and 
in the following summer some 3,000 fish died, and that practically 
depopulated that hatchery. 

We had never seen anything equaling the epidemic features of this 
disease. The thyroid gland, which is a gland situated in the neck, 
has a very intimate relationship with water. It is a gland which, 
in some countries, is very widely affected. An enlargement of the 
thyroid gland is. perhaps as you know, called goiter, goiter being an 
enlargement of the thyroid gland. In Switzerland and in the moun- 
tainous regions of eastern Europe goiter has arrived at a degree of 
economic importance which is quite serious. In Switzerland they 
refuse every year 7 per cent of the recruits for the Swiss Army 
because of goiter. There are districts in Switzerland in which as high 
as 70 per cent of all the young people have affections of the thyroid 
gland, and it is now firmly established that goiter is a disease result- 
ing from the use of water from certain sources. It has long been 
known that there are goiterous wells, goiterous springs, and goiter- 
ous streams. 

When this fact was properly recognized, in the eighties, a certain 
district in Switzerland, known as the Aarau district, changed its 
water supply, secured a water supply from a district which was free 
from goiter, and in the course of about 11 years the subsidence of 
goiter in that district fell from 59 per cent to less than 2-J- per cent. 
It has recently been demonstrated that goiter can be given to animals 
by taking the water from certain localities and certain wells and 
giving them exclusively that water, taking other animals and giving 
them water from other sources as a control. Furthermore, it has 
been found that if the water is boiled it destroys the activity of the 
water, and it has also been shown it can be filtered through a so- 
called germ-proof filter without eliminating the agent which pro- 
duces goiter. 



6 STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 

Cancer of the thyroid gland, it may be stated, always begins as 
goiter; that is, the greatest authority on the subject, Prof. Kocher 
told me in Paris this autumn that he had never seen a case of cancer 
of the thyroid that had not begun with goiter. It is an exceedingly 
suggestive thing that fish, which live in the water, should have the 
type of cancer which is associated with this gland, which, in itself, 
is subject to the disease resulting from the use of certain water 
supplies. 

It is impossible to tell you to-day how widespread goiter is in this 
country, but it is certainly a disease which is widespread, and it is on 
the increase. We have to-day no proper statistics giving us any idea 
of the geographical distribution of goiter. The reason for that is 
that our Census Bureau deals with mortality statistics, and a great 
many cases of goiter recover, and so those statistics give no adequate 
idea. This much can be said : That goiter in this country is on the in- 
crease; all surgeons are agreed to that and with the fact of its dis- 
tribution through water. I think the contemplation of the fact that 
fish are peculiarly susceptible to goiter and that type of goiter in 
fish breaks out in great epidemics and terminates in a large number 
of cases in cancer is a question of great importance so far as the 
study of cancer in human beings is concerned. 

Dr. Smith was asked a question with regard to the relationship of 
cancer in animals to human beings; whether there was a direct con- 
nection between the two. I do not think that question can be an- 
swered until we have more thoroughly investigated the subject. It 
is a fact that the distribution of cancer in the United States is almost 
identical with the distribution of the class of fish with which we are 
dealing; in other words, these fish live in the region in which cancer 
is most prevalent. It is also a known fact in Switzerland that the 
distribution of goiter in human beings and the distribution in animals 
is practically identical. 

It is just as possible that the fish have contracted the disease from 
the pollution of the streams by man as it is that the fish are a factor 
in the distribution of the disease. In all these districts where you 
have a relationship between the animal and the human you have a 
vicious cycle; one thing helps the other. 

In the last decade cancer in the civilized world has increased the 
world over; in the civilized countries, where the statistics are availa- 
ble, not less than 20 per cent. In the State of New York, where we 
have accurate statistics and have studied the matter carefully, in the 
last 12 years cancer has increased 25 per cent in proportion to the 
population. During the same time tuberculosis has decreased 4 per 
cent. We have no cure for tuberculosis, but Ave do understand the 
nature of the disease : we contend against it, we educate the public, 
and we are putting up a general educational fight, and it is begin- 
ning to show itself in figures. But in cancer the medical profession 
has been divided as to its nature, and we do absolutely nothing. Pro- 
posals are made that we should combat cancer on the ground that it is 
an infectious disease, and that brings out criticism. Some say that 
is a foolish proposition. 

It is my personal belief that cancer is an infectious disease, and I 
am not alone in so thinking. There is a mass of evidence pointing 
in that direction. Within the last few months a crucial experiment, 



STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 7 

one which all investigators have been seeking- to accomplish, has been 
successful in this country, and puts the corner stone in the structure. 
The experiment to which I refer was made by Dr. Peyton Rouse, of 
the Rockefeller Institute, who, by a fortunate combination of cir- 
cumstances, has been able to separate a virus which, injected into 
animals, will produce cancer, and that virus passes through a so- 
called germ-proof filter. It therefore belongs to the class known as 
filterable viruses. You have yellow fever, you have foot-and-mouth 
disease, and pigeon pox. and a large group of so-called filterable dis- 
eases. In that stage, undoubtedly, the organism is so small it can not 
be seen with an ordinary microscope. 

I have referred to these facts to indicate to 3^011 the progress of 
modern cancer research, so you may see the importance of this ques- 
tion. The artificial propagation of fish is a beneficent and proper 
function of this Government ; no country in the world has done quite 
as much, perhaps, as the American Government, and its Bureau of 
Fisheries is a model for all the other countries, and the States of this 
country are actively engaged in the same thing. But our Govern- 
ment gives the Bureau of Fisheries but $30,000 for all scientific work. 
I, myself, have, in Buffalo, an appropriation from the State of New 
York for the investigation of cancer alone of more than $30,000. 
That is not the way the Government should proceed with practical 
problems of this sort. In distributing fish you may be distributing 
disease, and you can not carry on such activities as the Bureau of 
Fisheries is engaged in without considering the public hygiene; and 
the responsibility can not be shirked. It will be perfectly possible 
for them to produce sound and healthy fish, and to continue their 
activities in a proper way ; but to do that they must have a labora- 
tory for the investigation of fish diseases. 

We have given a considerable part of our time and activities to this 
work, and have done all we possibly could. Last year the situation 
reached the point where our institution could not carry this burden, 
and, as it is partly a burden of the Government, I went to the Presi- 
dent with the matter, and he sent a special message to Congress. I 
assure you it is a very important question, and it reaches far beyond 
the question of fish culture. There are many practical problems in- 
volved in this which the Bureau of Fisheries should take charge of. 
If the Government will establish this laboratory, it will have the 
cooperation of our institution: if it does not. we can no longer carry 
the burden of special researches for the benefit of fish culture. We 
are willing to do everything we can. and for two years we have given 
up a large part of our time and endeavor to this investigation. 

Mr. GorLDEN. Can you tell us the origin of this cancerous sub- 
stance in the waters, and what is a preventive for it? 

Dr. Gaylord. I haven't any idea. 

Mr. Goulden. You do not know how it is produced in the water: 
you do not know how it gets there? 

Dr. Gaylord. Not at all. 

Mr. Goulden. Is it only in polluted streams, or is it in pure moun- 
tain streams ? Where do you find it ( 

Dr. Gaylord. The distribution of cancer in this country is in 
mountains, Avell-Avoocled and well-watered regions, and it is quite as 
prevalent in the country as in the cities, and affects those engaged in 
outdoor work to a greater degree than indoor occupations. 



8 STUDY" OF FISH DISEASES. 

Mr. Goulden. It seems to destroy the theory, then, that it is found 
only in polluted streams? 

Dr. Gaylord. I will not say that. It is a very difficult matter to 
say how much pollution it will take to start cancer in streams. There 
has been a report of a very striking occurrence in Norway, where a 
stonecutter, who was building a wall near a small stream had cancer 
of the rectum and defecated on the bank of the stream. In the 
following year a number of cases of cancer developed in houses 
adjacent to the stream farther down. 

I can tell you of another instance reported at the International 
Cancer Congress by a prominent cancer investigator. Dr. Sticker, 
who was previously a great opponent of the virus theory. The story 
was something like this: A certain count in Wurttemberg and the 
countess, his wife, died of cancer, and the rumor came from the 
schloss that nearly everybody in that place died of cancer. It came 
to the ears of the German Kaiser, who has cancer in his family, and, 
being intensely interested, he detailed Dr. Sticker to go there and 
investigate. He went to this estate and found a small pond, about 
1,000 feet long by 600 feet wide. On one side was the schloss, or 
villa ; on the other side were the farm buildings, and around one 
end of it was a little village of retainers of the count, who lived 
there — the butcher, the baker, the shoemaker, and so on. In the last 
10 years 20 people had died of cancer in that locality, including the 
count and countess. Eight of those people died of cancer of the 
stomach. He found two cases of cancer of the stomach at the time; 
one of them he did an autopsy on. and the other, a person in bad 
health, was found on examination to have a tumor of the pylorus. 
He found them pumping the water out of this pond into the castle, 
using it without filtration, and drinking it. The water from the 
stable yard, just across the pond, ran into it. and the water was quite 
foul. They also told him that the carp in that pond had tumors. 
He did not see any of these, but the fishermen described them so ac- 
curately that there was no doubt about it, and they were going to 
seine the pond to secure material for him. I only speak of that to 
show you something of the infectious nature of cancer. 

There are towns in Europe where they have moats, where the con- 
centration of cancer is very marked. These things are all subjects 
for accurate investigation. I think this year will mark a great 
stimulation to the investigation of cancer as a parasitic disease. The 
agencies engaged in the distribution of cancer, and why it is increas- 
ing, are yet to be determined. But certainly we can not ignore a 
factor such as this of cancer in» fish. 

Here is a map of New York, and you will see that one of the largest 
districts of concentration of cancer is in the Adirondacks. 

Mr. Goulden. The Adirondacks should have the best and purest 
Avater. 

Dr. Gaylord. The streams in Switzerland that produce goiter are 
almost the best and clearest water, and the most pure from the usual 
standpoint. Here are some pictures of fish. Here is a cancerous 
whitefish living in Lake Cayuga, N. Y., 5 miles below where an 
epidemic broke out in a State hatchery. There is a fish living under 
conditions of wildness, you might say. Here are a large salmon and 
a small fingerling showing throat tumors. 



STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 9 

Mr. Hardy. In other words, you think it is possible the fish hatch- 
eries may distribute this disease all over the country? 

Dr. Gaylobd. I think they ought to take every precaution to be 
sure they do not. We have succeeded in curing this by adding one 
to five million iodine and one to five million mercury, both of them 
antiseptics, and both those agents make tumors decrease in size. It 
would not be difficult to adapt our methods to fish culture. Fish 
culture will have to be modeled along those lines. 

Mr. Hardy. Is not that a pretty good indication that this fish dif- 
ficulty is not cancer? You can not cure cancer in the human being 
by a little application of iodine. 

Dr. Gaylord. No, sir; but cancer is surely curable. There were 
some cases of cancer reported cured by vaccination at the Inter- 
national Cancer Congress, in Paris, in October last. I will take 
pleasure in showing you a picture of the first case cured in this 
country by this method. 

Mr. Sturgiss. Have you, in any of the cases of curing, drawn any 
definite conclusions? 

Dr. Gaylord. I can only state that the first so-called alleged six 
cases of cure are based upon scientific research going back about 10 
years, the application of methods which have cured, experimentally, 
inoculated animals. We are no longer searching in the dark. We 
are working on a scientific structure built on years of work. 

Mr. Hardy. I saw a statement recently in a newspaper of some 
definite instance in which it was claimed that an absolute case of 
cancer had been thoroughly cured, but I do not recall the particulars. 

Dr. Gaylord. I will show you a photograph of that case. That 
case got into the newspapers about a week ago, unfortunately. 

Mr. Wilsox. That was one of your cases, was it not? 

Dr. Gaylord. Yes. That was the case we began treatment of last 
May. We have been working on vaccination since 1907. 

Mr. Sturgiss. What do you use — monkeys and guinea pigs ? 

Dr. Gaylord. We use rats and mice. You have not heard of us 
through the antivivisectionists, because the ladies are not interested 
in rats and mice. 

Mr. Sturgiss. You are pretty adroit in that respect. 

Mr. Hardy. If they serve the purpose just as well I wish you 
would use only rats and mice. 

Dr. Gaylord. The rats and mice have served an enormously im- 
portant purpose. 

Mr. Goulden. You are connected with the Buffalo Cancer Labora- 
tory ? 

Dr. Gaylord. I am director of the State cancer laboratory. That 
was the first institution established for the special laboratory study 
of cancer, and many other countries have followed. 

Mr. Hardy. Did j^ou tell what your treatment was? 

Dr. Gaylord. That boy was vaccinated with a vaccine made from 
rat cancer. 

Mr. Hardy. In other words, you cure like with like ? 

Dr. Gaylord. We discovered in 1907 that you could vaccinate ani- 
mals in the presence of cancer and cause their cancers to go away. 

Mr. Sturgiss. Similia similibus curantur? 

Dr. Gaylord. No; in this case it is unlike curing like. Of course, 
if you carry that to its final conclusion like does cure like. If you 
recover from a disease the disease cures itself. 



10 STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 

Mr. Hardy. Is it not, rather, on the principle that by the injection 
of this weakened form of the disease the system is able to resist that 
and strengthen itself? 

Dr. (Iaylokd. That is protective vaccination. This type of vacci- 
nation consists in bringing out the latent forces at a time when they 
can be available. The principal trouble with tuberculosis, and dis- 
eases of that sort, is that there is always evidence of antibodies 
in the blood, but they are not sufficient. If you can stimulate the 
resistive powers of the individual to rise up you can overcome the 
disease. Yon produce in the individual himself an antibody to 
overcome his disease. 

Mr. Hakdy. Is that along the line that Mithridates was said to 
have accustomed his body to poisonous substances? 

Dr. Gaylord. Exactly. That is active immunity. 

The Chairman. We are very much obliged to you. Doctor, for your 
information. 

(Thereupon, at 12 o'clock noon, the committee proceeded to other 
business. ) 

(The folloAving extracts from the report of the Commissioner of 
Fisheries to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for the fiscal year 
ended June 30, 1910, were submitted by Dr. Smith, the deputy and 
acting commissioner:) 

STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 

During the fiscal year the bureau has continued cooperation with the New 
York State Cancer Laboratory in the investigation of thyroid tumor or cancer 
in domesticated fishes. An aquarium with two independent systems of closed- 
water circulation, with proper means of refrigeration, has been established for 
the observation of salmon and trout and experiments in inoculation and treat- 
ment. Investigation at various stations of the bureau and at other hatcheries 
have shown that the disease is even more widespread and general than was 
suspected. Considerable difficulty has been encountered in obtaining for pur- 
poses of experiment a sufficient number of fish above suspicion of infection, 
and it has been necessary in this effort to secure a quantity of wild trout from 
remote streams. Owing to the technical difficulties attending this work, which 
are equal to those retarding the advance of knowledge relating to the cause 
and nature of cancer in human beings, progress is made only by slow and pains- 
taking steps and by the use of the most approved appliances and methods. For 
this reason it is highly important that the bureau should be provided with a 
well-equipped laboratory and experimental hatchery, not only for the purposes 
of the present investigation, but for the study of the many other diseases affect- 
ing fishes, both under domestication and in a state of nature. The President, 
in a special message to Congress dated April 9, 1910, urgently recommended an 
appropriation for this purpose. 

During the year the bureau was called on to investigate epidemics among 
hatchery fish at Spruce Creek, Pa., and Roxbury, Vt. At the former place the 
mortality was due in part to the thyroid tumor or cancer before alluded to, 
but the majority of the deaths were apparently caused by a bacterial infection 
which the bureau has found at other places, but which it has not the facilities 
to study at present. At Roxbury the disease is also infectious and annually 
causes large losses. The bureau has likewise made investigations in Penn- 
sylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia upon the kindred subject of the pollution of 
streams in its relation to fishes and the fisheries. 



LABORATORY FOR THE STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 

.There is again urged the importance of a station for the study of tish diseases 
and experiments in the interests of fish culture. In some of the hatcheries 
of the bureau and in similar establishments under State and private auspices 
certain fish diseases have become so prevalent as to make it a matter of grave 



STUDY OF FISH DISEASES. 11 

consideration whether the propagation of certain species, especially the trouts, 
should not be abandoned. It frequently occurs that the fish and fry are 
decimated by epidemics for which there are no known remedies, in consequence 
of which there are annually entailed on fish culture large wastes of time and 
money. In addition to the financial loss, embarrassment arises at times in fill- 
ing legitimate demands for fish for restocking depleted waters, and the effect 
on the morale of the employees of the bureau who have to struggle hopelessly 
against an obscure disease is not unworthy of consideration. The gravest 
phase of the matter, however, is the possible relationship of some of these 
diseases to more or less kindred affections occurring in human beings. It 
has been determined that a type of cancerous affection is of widespread dis- 
tribution among domesticated trout and their offspring planted in the streams. 
Whether this disease has a causal relation to cancer in human beings, or 
whether the two are to be even traced to the same source, is a matter of doubt, 
but the annually increasing mortality from cancer in man and certain re- 
markable coincidences in the geographical distribution of the disease in man 
and fish render it imperative that it should be made the subject of minute in- 
quiry. The matter therefore has not only economic but humanitarian aspects, 
and the consideration of the serious character of the latter prompted the Presi- 
dent to submit to Congress on April 9, 1910, a special message advocating 
an appropriation of $50,000 for the construction and equipment of a laboratory 
adequate to enable the bureau to discharge its plain obligations. The bureau 
in the meantime is proceeding in the investigation to the limit of its powers, 
but it may be stated emphatically that it can make but little progress without 
the special facilities asked for. 

O 



GATLORD BROS. 

MAKERS 

SYRACUSE, - N. 

PAT. JAN. 21, ISOS 






